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Authors: Jennifer Hobhouse Balme
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we are at death grips and having a heart to heart talk with what I believe was mutual confidence and respect.
Only all through I was tortured by my feeling of utter mental incompetence â partly from an empty brain, the result of over fatigue and partly from the sense that I was not trained enough maybe in public matters and diplomacy to make the most of a chance so unusual and so striking. I had the right spirit, but body and mind lacked power and knowledge. He probably thought me a goose, but if so, he was good-natured enough not to show it. When I rose to go I felt giddy and could hardly find my way to the door. The effort to concentrate my whole feeble mental powers had been very much too great for me.
Outside, the Baron and Herr Rieth awaited me. I recovered myself a bit, enough to say tauntingly to the Baron that the Minister had said I was to see anyone I pleased and the more I saw the better satisfied he would be and that I had told him I had seen Dr. Salomon and hoped he did not mind. He had said he was delighted I had seen her.
The Baron there at seemed much relieved â as if a weight was off his conscience. So we returned to the hotel and I hoped to rest go early to bed and digest the talk I had just heard. It was a relief that the Baron said goodnight, asking me to ring him up in the morning.
I went to my room â when to my joy in a very few minutes after I had eaten my boiled egg for supper â Elisabeth Rotten appeared asking if I would receive also Baron de Neufville, the well-known pacifist of Frankfurt a/M, the friend of the Courtneys to whose daughter I had sent the wedding gift last summer from Amsterdam on behalf of Kate Courtney. I was most pleased. It was then a little after 8 p.m. and they stayed till past 10 â and then we sent the gentleman away first, that he might slip away the more unobserved â he fully aware of the necessity for caution. He brought me a bouquet of magnificent roses which sweetened my room all the time I was in Berlin. How we talked â they telling me and I telling them.
I was glad to seek his advice about an idea that had already come into my head since I left von Jagow, born of the feeling that it ought to have been a British Statesman sitting chatting with him and not just me. He thought I could do no wrong by suggesting it in a little note and outlined the form. I was comforted and supported and determined to try. They told me much of the condition of the country â he said food affairs were very similar at Frankfurt a/M and like everyone else he said on that point Germany would never give in. He spoke of the Peace Gatherings they had had at his town and they told me much that was helpful of the state of internal politics â the position and difficulties of the Chancellor, the respect felt for him, the link between him and the Kaiser â the continued Jingoism of the Conservative Militarists and the immense growth of the Social Democrats whose Minority in Reichstag was a Majority in the country and likely to sweep the Empire at the conclusion of the war. I spoke of my wish to see Clergymen and Frau Minna Cauer and anyone else possible. Dr. Rotten was so sorry that the Meeting for her Fund to take place at Prince Lichnowskyâs house should have been fixed for that very next day, for it was all on her hands; otherwise, she could have done so much more for me.
By 10.30 p.m. I was alone to chew the cud of a most exciting and wonderful day. It was still broad daylight as I went to bed.
Tuesday, June 20th Very early I was up, desiring to write to von Jagow without delay. I hurried through my coffee and expressed the letter. Then Baron Falkenhausen âphoned to say the trip to Ruhleben was put off as of some difficulty about a car and that Count Schwerin himself desired to be there. This somewhat wasted the day. He said he would come round later and take me to a restaurant. Dr. Alice Salomon rang me up about arranging for Dr.
Only all through I was tortured by my feeling of utter mental incompetence â partly from an empty brain, the result of over fatigue and partly from the sense that I was not trained enough maybe in public matters and diplomacy to make the most of a chance so unusual and so striking. I had the right spirit, but body and mind lacked power and knowledge. He probably thought me a goose, but if so, he was good-natured enough not to show it. When I rose to go I felt giddy and could hardly find my way to the door. The effort to concentrate my whole feeble mental powers had been very much too great for me.
Outside, the Baron and Herr Rieth awaited me. I recovered myself a bit, enough to say tauntingly to the Baron that the Minister had said I was to see anyone I pleased and the more I saw the better satisfied he would be and that I had told him I had seen Dr. Salomon and hoped he did not mind. He had said he was delighted I had seen her.
The Baron there at seemed much relieved â as if a weight was off his conscience. So we returned to the hotel and I hoped to rest go early to bed and digest the talk I had just heard. It was a relief that the Baron said goodnight, asking me to ring him up in the morning.
I went to my room â when to my joy in a very few minutes after I had eaten my boiled egg for supper â Elisabeth Rotten appeared asking if I would receive also Baron de Neufville, the well-known pacifist of Frankfurt a/M, the friend of the Courtneys to whose daughter I had sent the wedding gift last summer from Amsterdam on behalf of Kate Courtney. I was most pleased. It was then a little after 8 p.m. and they stayed till past 10 â and then we sent the gentleman away first, that he might slip away the more unobserved â he fully aware of the necessity for caution. He brought me a bouquet of magnificent roses which sweetened my room all the time I was in Berlin. How we talked â they telling me and I telling them.
I was glad to seek his advice about an idea that had already come into my head since I left von Jagow, born of the feeling that it ought to have been a British Statesman sitting chatting with him and not just me. He thought I could do no wrong by suggesting it in a little note and outlined the form. I was comforted and supported and determined to try. They told me much of the condition of the country â he said food affairs were very similar at Frankfurt a/M and like everyone else he said on that point Germany would never give in. He spoke of the Peace Gatherings they had had at his town and they told me much that was helpful of the state of internal politics â the position and difficulties of the Chancellor, the respect felt for him, the link between him and the Kaiser â the continued Jingoism of the Conservative Militarists and the immense growth of the Social Democrats whose Minority in Reichstag was a Majority in the country and likely to sweep the Empire at the conclusion of the war. I spoke of my wish to see Clergymen and Frau Minna Cauer and anyone else possible. Dr. Rotten was so sorry that the Meeting for her Fund to take place at Prince Lichnowskyâs house should have been fixed for that very next day, for it was all on her hands; otherwise, she could have done so much more for me.
By 10.30 p.m. I was alone to chew the cud of a most exciting and wonderful day. It was still broad daylight as I went to bed.
Tuesday, June 20th Very early I was up, desiring to write to von Jagow without delay. I hurried through my coffee and expressed the letter. Then Baron Falkenhausen âphoned to say the trip to Ruhleben was put off as of some difficulty about a car and that Count Schwerin himself desired to be there. This somewhat wasted the day. He said he would come round later and take me to a restaurant. Dr. Alice Salomon rang me up about arranging for Dr.
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